CEUTA, Spain — I reached Abdelhadi just before he crossed the fence separating Spain’s North African territory of Ceuta from his home in Morocco. He was surrounded by thousands of other young Moroccan men, dressed in swimsuits and Spanish soccer jerseys, and he stepped out of the throng to speak to me. “I can’t talk for long, I’ve got to go home and see my mom!” he said, grinning through a wispy mustache and goatee as he pulled me in for a hug.
A commerce and marketing student from Casablanca, Abdelhadi couldn’t have been older than 18 or 19. He explained that he had rushed a Moroccan border checkpoint and swam 10 yards along the coast to evade Spanish authorities after reading online that a Spanish Supreme Court ruling would grant him asylum in Europe if he could reach Ceuta—a Spanish exclave on Morocco’s northern coast. But after the Spanish military informed him that this was not true, he and his friends returned to the border, hoping to make it home in time for dinner that evening.
“We thought that if we could stay for one month, then we’d be able to go to Spain, but when we entered, we found out that it is full and there is no place to stay,” Abdelhadi said as his friends nodded behind him, flashing thumbs-up and peace signs at the news cameras that had gathered in front of them. “Now it is time for us to go home.”
